She's Only Happy in the Sun
by Daydreamblvr6
Summary: Aftermath of a wolfbite.  Damon and Rose dive headfirst into the next chapter of their unlives, with the rest of the gang in tow.  Will she live, or will she die?  And what does Damon care?
1. Expect the Unexpected

Hi!

So "The Descent" promo really struck me, consequently prompting my first COMPLETED serial fic. While it is based off the promo, the focus is on Damon and Rose, so not everything from the promo is in this story. This puppy is nine chapters long, plus a short epilogue, and, like I said, already finished. I'll have it all posted by the airing (in the US) of "The Descent."

I'm seriously excited about this, guys, but I'm afraid it's lousy because, well, it's my _first_. So please be kind to a poor soul and review. Let me know what needs improving, if additional scenes are necessary, if my build-up is exciting, etc, etc. And short little "Liked it!" are always, always appreciated.

Disclaimer: I am now the proud owner of a poster with the Vampire Diaries logo on it (as well as Ian Sommerhalder's face), but that doesn't really mean anything in the scheme of things because I own nothing else.

* * *

Damon has to admit, as he's turning the lock on the door, that he's a little amazed at himself for doing what the teacher suggested. He takes a few pensive steps inside and chalks it up to a—very—latent human survival instinct.

Something is off.

The house feels occupied, and last he checked he was down a brother and subsequently a brother's girlfriend. Cautiously, he walks through his house, ready to run at the slightest indication that he should. When he sees Rose, uncomfortably comfortable in the desk chair, he relaxes into his predator's stance, feeling much more at home in this skin than prey's skin.

"Just can't stay away, can ya?"

"Well you don't answer your phone," she informs him, moving to make a plea he can _see_ coming—he's just not sure for what, or for whom.

"What do you want?" He's purposefully callous, because clingy woman are easier to get rid of that way.

"I wanted to apologize."

_Oh_, he thinks, _**that**_ _plea_. "Just admit it," he says condescendingly, actually owning the power he plays at in her presence, "you don't have anywhere else to go."

"I'm sorry," she starts, moving forward as he settles back, "about Elena. I wasn't thinking straight; I didn't know she had a death wish. But I called you, I tried to make it right, okay? I'm sorry, Damon." So many apologies all of the sudden, he remarks silently. "And I, I have nowhere else to go." Her chuckle wills him to find humor—and mercy—in her helplessness.

"There's nothing here for you, Rose," he tells her as he walks past her to the alcohol, the predatory stalk in his step.

She was stupid to expect a different answer, but she knows he's stupid to turn down an ally and she's about to say so "Well, then—" when shattered glass in the background distracts them both.

~v~

He goes all gentle—not because she saved his life with her scream-his-name-and-push-him-out-of-the-way move, but because of something else entirely—after the wolf is gone. The blood on her shoulder professes his guilt and he's not shrugging it off. She begins to sob, relieved, when the bite heals and somehow it's the natural thing to do to embrace her. And soothe her. And be grateful that she's alive.

~V~

When she'slying in a feverish delirium late that night, he sits bedside going over the moments just before the fatal werewolf's bite became reality again, searching for a clue as to a cure. Her words "I don't love men who love other women" come back to him with perfect clarity.

_I don't love men who love other women._

_Not _a declaration that he is unlovable (or second best), _not _a reassurance of platonic concern, but an act of self-preservation that he recognizes as a mechanism he should have used.

Self-preservation is something he can understand in the abstract, respect in the practical, and pretend to employ while never really getting it done.

Rose whimpers and he leans forward, running his fingertips across her forehead and down over her temple. She turns toward his palm, gently pushing her nose into the easy give of his cold skin.

He wants her well.


	2. Is She Gonna Die, Stefan?

Hello all!

As it happens, I wasn't as finished with this as I thought I was. I had to add a scene _and _extend a scene in this chapter before it was what it needed to be (or as close to that as it's gonna get). I'm much, much, much happier with it now and I hope you enjoy it. :)

Disclaimer: I own jack squat.

Happy (hopefully) reading!

Her awakening the next morning is an unexpected relief—in two senses. Damon had honestly expected never to see her eyes again, and he's still uncertain why he cares that she lives.

As she sits up, he holds a mug of blood out for her from his lounge in the bedside chair. "Drink this." She accepts it, and gulps the liquid down quickly, crinkling her nose. "Gah. It tastes stale."

"It is," Damon tells her. "Stefan went on a blood bender a few weeks ago. It's from a hospital a few towns over, so crappy quality to start with. Humans," he shrugs in a whatcha-gonna-do way, "not picky about saving lives."

Rose drinks again, her swallow loud in the silence.

"It helping?" Damon asks, jerking his chin towards the bite.

"I don't know," she answers. She rolls her shoulder, huffing a breath with the pain it causes her.

"Let me see," he demands, standing up to lean over her. He pulls her forward, close to his chest, her cheek brushing his shirt, and pushes the sleeve of the shirt she borrowed from him down her arm. The patch of desiccated skin has grown toward her spine and down, scraps falling away from her body at his gentle touch. He hisses at it, and at her shudder as her skin peels off.

"This shirt's rubbing it, is there anything else I can wear?"

"Wouldn't bother me if you went around shirtless," Damon half-jokes as he sits back down in his chair. "Elena might have something stashed away in Stefan's room. If not, I'll have her bring you something."

"Thanks." Rose looks down at the cup in her lap, her head titled to the side, hair flat, skin paler than usual.

"Finish that," he orders, in a tone that reminds him of talking to Elena.

She tilts the cup back, nose wrinkled, and gulps. Then repeats the process to appease him before licking her lips and setting the cup on the nightstand. She sits back as she faces him; she can tell that he's unsure why he's still here (knows the feeling herself) and gives him a reason to stay: "Now, since I'm your friend, I'm going to pry." He raises an eyebrow at her, amused. "How did you get involved in Katherine's mess?"

Across the room, where he'd retreated after hearing her question, his jaw clenches.

Wise from past experience, she says, "She did to you what she did to Trevor."

"Katherine, the eternal slut," he acknowledges bitterly. He's sunk into the shadows with his arms crossed and his eyes are barely visible.

"Stefan?" she asks.

"Love of her unlife."

Suspecting that doppelgangers don't fall too far from the tree, she voices it gently, "Is Elena more similar to Katherine than she seems?"

"Yes." He speaks through his teeth, body rigid. "And no."

"Caring gets you dead," she reminds him.

"Yeah," he says, pushing out of the shadows, "I know."

~V~

"Where's Elena?" Damon asks Stefan, as the younger of the two comes down the stairs after suitably comforting an Elena slightly traumatized from Damon's off-the-cuff, _but honest_, response to her "Is she gonna die, Stefan?" question.

"With Rose," Stefan replies, brow furrowed to read his brother.

Damon doesn't notice. "Hm. They've got this weird ex-captive/captor vibe. I dunno that I'd let Elena be with her alone, little brother," he admonishes, wagging a finger at Stefan. "I'm kinda disappointed that you haven't ripped Rose's head off for that kidnapping stunt actually."

Stefan cocks an eyebrow at him. "Elena's forgiven her, Damon, so can I."

Damon shrugs distractedly, heading for the scotch. Stefan narrows his eyes at him—it's daylight and he knows there's no way he'll ever get Damon to AA meetings though the thought is amusing, usually more so than now. "Have you tried blood?" he asks.

Damon nods over his shoulder at him. "This morning." He turns his full attention back to his brother, setting the decanter stopper on the table. "Blood doesn't always work, Stefan. Sometimes vampires _die_."

"We won't let that happen to Rose," Stefan promises, eyes wiser than Damon's still watching his older brother as Damon picks up the stopper and puts it back in the decanter without pouring a drink.

"I have a date with a werewolf to insure that it doesn't." Damon swings his leather jacket off the back of the couch and over his shoulder, walking past Stefan again. "What are _you_ doing?"

"Meeting Ric. We're gonna go over Isobel's research to try to find something that may shed some light on a cure for Rose."

Damon nods again, eyes unfocused. "So Elena's on Rose duty."

"Yeah."

Damon turns and bounds up the stairs, headed for his room. "Hey Rosebud," he greets the stricken vampire from the doorway as Rose turns on her back to face him, "how do you feel about having Elena here babysit you while Stefan and I go fact-finding? It'll be a nice bit of role reversal."

Rose raises her eyebrows at him, delighting in his easy, but fake, nonchalance. Regardless of her fear of imminent death, she smiles at this easily formed friendship, hoping to reassure him. "More time for girl talk."

"You two girls chat away. I expect my ears to burn." Damon gives his best almost-innocent-but-terribly-conceited eye-smirk causing Rose to laugh weakly at him and Elena to roll her eyes. "Ttfn," he finishes, and vanishes.

~V~

"How much do you know about Damon?" Elena asks, settling back into her chair and pulling her legs to her chin after saying goodbye to Stefan.

Rose smiles, thinking '_Little human' _gently at the girl. "Lexi described him as 'not a nice person' which was Lexi lingo for a royal jackass."

"You know about Lexi?" Elena's surprise weights Rose's amusement and the vampire pushes back fangs that are getting harder to keep sheathed.

"Stefan told me."

"And you're still…?"

Rose tilts her head farther into the pillow below it and cocks an eyebrow, her amusement light again. "Sleeping with Damon?"

Elena nods, half self-conscious but too good—Stefan's kind of good—to withdraw the question.

"A vampire who holds grudges ends up miserable for eternity. I choose to forgive and forget because eternity is a long time." She shifts under the sheet, trying to decide whether she is cold or hot and fighting the itch in the veins around her eyes.

The younger—_so much younger_—girl places her feet on the floor slowly and then is abruptly standing, and pacing, just slightly, and without recognition of motion. "How do you forgive someone who killed someone you loved?"

Rose doesn't answer and Elena ceases to expect one as she halts with shoulders tense. "It's okay to love both of them, you know," Rose tells her instead.

"I don't, Rose," Elena replies simply, wearily helpless. "And I'm not Katherine."

With a nod, Rose agrees, but then murmurs, "I highly doubt Katherine loved either one of them."

Elena sits. "For Damon, I wish she had."

~V~

Damon saunters into The Grille, carefully searching for Jules and finding Ric. He strides over to the younger older man, so much a monster that Ric sullenly wonders how Mystic Falls is still so clueless. "What are _you_ doing here?"

Ric looks up from the remains of what had been a peaceful lunch, French fry in hand. "Having lunch. We don't all live in a buffet, Damon."

All but ignoring his reply, Damon continues, "I thought you were meeting Stefan."

Ric stands tiredly. "I am. On my way right now." He jingles his car keys impudently in the vampire's face.

"I'm not above eating you, Ric," Damon threatens, invading Ric's personal space.

Personal space must not have been a respected norm in 1864 as it is now, Ric assumes, and says "Sure, Damon," as he pushes past him. Damon turns to watch him go (make sure he leaves) and all of the sudden the werewolf's standing in Ric's vacated spot, surprising him. Angrily, he spins back around to remind himself who the more powerful, _stealthier_, one of them is by towering—kind of—over her.

"Let me guess," she starts with fake enthusiasm, "you wanna talk." The way she says it makes her position on recent events perfectly clear. His features meld into his "I'm pissed _and_ dangerous" glare as she continues. "But first, how's your friend? Rose? Was that her name?" Jules walks by him to sit down in a booth to his right. Twisting, he follows and slides in across from her.

"Tell me how to cure a werewolf bite," he tilts his head. "And then I won't kill you."

Her looks says "Whatever" over the top of the menu she's browsing. "I'm not the only werewolf in existence, vampire." She puts the menu down and places immaculately manicured hands on the top of it, dropping pretense. "My pack knows where I am."

Incredulously, he questions, "Your _pack_? Seriously?"

Jules sits back against the seat, crossing her arms. "I don't waltz into potentially dangerous situations without back-up. Unlike you," she adds pointedly.

"You're not dangerous today," he reminds her. "I have a month to track them down and kill them, after I kill you." He leans forward menacingly, sick of this she-wolf and her unmerited I'm-a-badass attitude.

She leans forward to meet him, forearms on the table. "You'd never find them all. And they _know_ where _you _are."

Damon growls under his breath as she stands up. He wonders how wolf would taste.

"About Rose." She looks down at him, delighted. "Have the chills started yet?" Damon feels fangs as he stands. "The unbearable pain? Did I mention the dementia?" Moving closer, she says into his face, "You want a cure?" Jules starts stepping away, dark humor in her slow swinging waist. "Take a stake and drive it through her heart."

~V~

"Rose?" Elena calls, stopping in the doorway to Damon's room, the mug of blood Rose requested in her hand. The bed is empty. "Rose?"


	3. Friends Indeed

Hiya!

Sooooooo I wasn't done with this chapter either and that's why it took me so long post it. . I'm really sorry, I honestly hadn't intended for it to need more primping, but you guys inspire me with your comments and I've got to write. :) I want to make it as good as I possibly can while still getting it all out on time. Wish me luck!

Disclaimer: Everytime I have to write I don't own them, I remember they aren't real and I think that's more depressing than not possessing them.

Happy (hopefully) reading!

* * *

Rose needed blood, Elena knows, so it logically follows that if she finds blood, she'll find Rose. The stupidity in seeking said dying vampire who's now possibly on a blood binge is tremendous, but Elena's done tremendously stupid things before.

She puts the mug on the dresser by the door and heads to Stefan's blood stash in the basement, hoping that Rose will have had her fill by the time she gets there (knowing that vampires are never truly full).

When she rounds the corner, "Rose?" and "Oh my god" slipping in a frightened hurry between her lips, Rose is sitting, bent at the waist, using her knees to keep the hands that are pushing blood down her throat steady. For the first time, Elena sees the extent of the damage on Rose's back, watches a piece of skin peel off and fall into a puddle of blood on the floor, where it sticks. She thinks she's going to be sick.

The vampire turns to her, shamed by her inability to control the craving, tracing Elena's veins with traitorous eyes. Blood slides down her neck.

Elena is panting, backing up instinctively, more afraid of this vampire's bloodstained, still-human face than she's ever been of Stefan in bloodlust. "You should go," Rose tells her, and she sounds so much like Damon, that Elena does as told, turning on the heel of her converse. At the start of Rose's sudden screams, she _dashes_ for the phone she ought to start carrying in her pocket.

The stairs trip her and she's thinking _Damon_, _Stefan, Damon, Stefan, Damon, Stefan!, _wondering how damn long it can take to get her feet back under her body. She pauses, halting to stop scrambling uselessly, and in the silence of her stillness and the absence of Rose's screams, she hears footsteps.

For reasons she doesn't wait to understand, she keeps moving. She sprints through the hallway, desperation—she _has_ to call Damon, Rose is the closest thing he has to happiness—propelling her. She's almost to the living room, when suddenly Rose is in front of her, advancing, stalking, hungry.

"Rose, it's me: Elena." The words are meaningless.

She spins and runs again, praying that Rose will want to play cat and mouse, because that's the only chance she has.

~V~

Damon knocks three times in quick succession on the teacher's front door, fidgeting impatiently. Maybe the witch can be talked into locating a cure, or he can pull a Mason with Jules. She comes equipped with a truck and everything.

There are entirely too many problems for him to deal with at once, he thinks. At least Elena's off the suicide tear, or he'd be totally screwed. (Hell. Is anyway.)

Ric _finally_ opens the door and Damon smiles brightly at him.

"How do you know where I live?" Ric demands.

"That's a mystery," Damon mocks him. Alaric sighs and, realizing the inevitable, mutters, "Come in." Damon strides past him hurriedly.

"Have you found anything?" he inquires without greeting.

Stefan lifts his head from the papers beneath his hands. "Nothing yet." He stands straight and crosses his arms, sighing wearily. "How'd your meeting with Jules go?"

"Splendidly," Damon answers sarcastically, lifting his shoulders. "Wolf's a bitch," he mumbles. "I am gonna kill her. Her _pack_, too."

Stefan sighs again, knowing that this pack will be trouble added to trouble already multiplied, and Alaric settles back against the wall to watch the brothers go. He finds he's largely unneeded in their presence, until a weaponry tutorial is necessary. "Focus, Damon," Stefan entreats him.

Damon shakes off his irritation and begins to pace, but he stops in a moment to speak. "She gave me a list of symptoms—_not_ fun—and told me to stake her."

Alaric shoves himself off the wall to join the intimate cocoon the brothers always create around themselves. "What are the symptoms?" he asks.

Damon pushes off the balls of his feet to round on him for dramatic effect. "Chills, pain, dementia," he ticks off, misplaced anger now directed at the teacher.

Stefan is suddenly concerned (_uh-oh, frown lines_). "How soon do those symptoms start after a bite?"

Exasperated and rolling his eyes, Damon spins to reply, wishing briefly for a drink, "She was too busy threatening me to mention."

"Damon," Stefan emphasizes, trying to communicate what he doesn't want to say, "Elena."

Realization dawns on the elder brother. "In a house with a deranged, dying vampire who has no idea who she is," he finishes for Stefan.

Alaric stares at his now-empty home after the brothers vanish, then goes and pours himself a drink.

~V~

Damon beats Stefan and blurs to Elena's heartbeat, finding it in Stefan's room. The feisty little thing is standing in front of the large window Stefan likes to brood at with Jeremy's whittled stake in her hands. He cocks an eyebrow at her briefly, before turning around to face the threat.

Rose is huddled in the shadows, trapped by sunlight but snarling. Damon moves closer, careful to stay in the ray of light on the floor. He kneels in front of her. "Ew, grisly," he says when he gets a look at her face.

"I found her in the basement," Elena offers, a bit more secure in her safety with Damon present, but still clutching the stake.

"You got into Stefan's leftovers, huh?" Damon murmurs, gazing intently at Rose. The other vampire whimpers and growls.

Elena continues, her steadiness a little less steady than usual, "She was like this," she gestures to indicate Rose's bloody state, "but as…fine as could be expected. I went to get my phone" _to call you _she doesn't say because she really needs Damon to focus right now and has no inclination to explain to him _why _she was going to call him and not Stefan especially when he won't listen anyway, "but she cut me off. And then," she pauses, wanting to emphasize this, "Damon, she didn't know who I was."

Stefan appears beside his girlfriend and takes her into his arms as she drops the stake, twisting to position himself between her and Rose. "Apparently, those symptoms start fast," Damon clues him in. He's still looking at Rose when he asks, "Where're we gonna put her?"

"Elena, why don't you go downstairs?" Stefan suggests. Understanding his intent, Elena nods and steps out of his arms. Stefan creeps to Damon's side once she's out the door.

"Damon, maybe we should put her down. She's—"

"No," Damon growls. "We have a friendship. And _we_" he points between himself and Stefan, "have a vested interest. If we find a cure that works on her, we are free of the werewolf threat."

Stefan knows that discovering a cure is not worth the risk, but the _something _he sees in his brother's eyes is. "All right." He pauses. "So what do we do with her?" In the shadows, Rose begins clawing at her back. Her frantic fingernails are tearing at the loose skin, peeling it down the length of her back. Without thinking, Damon speeds to her and grabs her hands. "Uh, uh, uh," he singsongs. "Hands off the damage." Rose bares her teeth at him and he bares his right back. Her eyes widen, lucidity returning momentarily, "Damon?"

"She is in there!" he announces. He keeps his grip on her hands. She sags into him. "Back to bed for you," he says. She's already unconscious.

"You can't just put her back in your bed, Damon."

"Sure I can, Stefan. Watch, I'll show you."

"She's dangerous, Damon."

"Hardly," Damon argues. "She's weak as a kitten." He picks her up gently, bridal style.

Stefan decides to pick his battles. "I'm taking Elena home," he tells the other man.

"Good plan, brother," Damon responds. "I got this."

~V~

Two hours past his phone call to Stefan to suggest talking to Katherine about a wolf bite cure (it's almost a surety the bitch has one), a plan to which Stefan agrees and one that, predictably, fails, and three hours into the most boring stint of guard duty he has ever undertaken, Damon desperately needs a drink. And a snack. He purses his lips at Rose feverish and asleep on his bed, then leaves his bedroom to jog down the stairs.

He's sipping on a blood bag—uncouth but economic—and pouring a bourbon when he hears the rustle of sheets hitting the floor. He has time to spin around and see her pause just before she bounds out the door with speed greater than his.

"_Shit_."


	4. Walking the Plank

Hello all!

This chapter is kinda fill-y feeling to me, but I couldn't fix it so here it is. I'm getting really anxious to get to the next chapters, so hopefully they won't take as long to be posted. :)

Anywho, I own nothing and happy (hopefully) reading!

* * *

"You left her alone in your room? After what happened with Elena? _Damon_."_ I really can't believe you_ is the silent, expected (and relatively mild) tack-on.

"For five seconds," Damon clarifies with his hands in the air. He stands against the liquor table, agitated but hiding it.

Stefan continues, his exasperation and mild panic evident, "So now she's running loose in Mystic Falls." Elena sags against him, worn and burdened.

"Unless she left town," Damon corrects, sipping from his glass, "yes." Stefan has half a mind to take the scotch from his brother's hand and down it himself, but refrains when he notes that his brother needs it more.

"How're we gonna find her?"

Damon begins to respond, but Bonnie interrupts him coolly as she comes forward. "I can do a locator spell."

"When'd you get here?" Damon mumbles, annoyed by her interruption. Bonnie ignores him.

"Do you have anything that belongs to her?"

With a flourish, Damon answers, "I'll do you one better. I've got her blood. All over a very expensive designer shirt," he adds.

"It won't just tell us where to find the people she…ate?" Elena asks, perplexed, looking from Stefan to Bonnie.

"No, the unique mixture of all their blood will only point to Rose." Behind the vampire, Bonnie nods, grudgingly confirming Damon's response. Elena settles back into the couch and her boyfriend, wondering why she assumes that not _everything _will fall apart at once.

"Is Caroline coming?" she whispers to Stefan when Bonnie begins the spell with Damon looking on.

He pulls his face back from her hair to nod. "I called her."

"Here!" Caroline announces and strides into the room. "Oh, sorry, witchy stuff going on." She perches on the arm of the sofa with more comfort than Elena would have thought she'd have here.

"It's okay, Caroline," Bonnie assures her with a tired smile, "I'm done."

"So where is she?" Damon demands, ever impatient.

Bonnie gives him a dirty look, which he ignores. "Near the school, to the east."

Under Elena's worried gaze, Stefan stands.

"I'm coming with you," Caroline proclaims, like it's obvious.

"No you're not," Stefan protests; he made a promise.

"Yeah I am. She's five hundred something years old; you guys need all the help you can get."

She's right and Stefan knows it and before his brother can prolong the moment with more indecision, Damon decides for him. "Don't screw it up."

Caroline beams and the three come together, exchange a nod and a look, and run.

~V~

She hasn't been this hungry in six hundred and fourteen years.

With her little bit of lucidity, she knows she must look a holy terror. Damon cleaned her face, but the blood refuses to retreat from her eyes and her fangs are filling her mouth. Her body jerks with want for more speed, for the hunt.

She hears a heartbeat and her sanity gushes away.


	5. Downward Slope and a Hint of Hope

Heya! How are y'all? Good I hope. Excited for THE RETURN OF TVD THIS WEEK? I know I am! .

Anyway, the second scene in this chapter is my FIRST EVER ACTION SEQUENCE. Ever ever. Soooooo, I'm a bit nervous about it and would _really, really _appreciate feedback on it. And I'm sorry it's short, I don't mean to do that to you guys, I feel bad posting short chapters. :/

As for a disclaimer, I'm just a poor soul.

* * *

Elena paces around the living room to the rhythm of Bonnie flipping through Emily's grimoire. Sometimes being the defenseless human is maddening, and she's worried about Rose. And Stefan. And Caroline. And Damon. And Elijah. And Klaus.

On her way past it again, she eyes the scotch, considers pouring herself (and Bonnie) a drink. It seems to work for Damon.

Instead, she turns from it to Bonnie, halting her friend's frantic hands. "What're you looking for?"

"A way to save Rose." Bonnie faces her, and Elena sees Sheila's weariness in her friend's eyes. "We're gonna need an army to defeat Klaus, no matter what that other vampire guy promises." Elena acknowledges this truth by silence and when their gazes become too heavy to hold, Bonnie drops her head. "There's gotta be something in here, Emily knew practically everything."

Elena takes Bonnie's hands, and speaks when she has her full attention. "Thank you, Bonnie."

Bonnie smiles as Elena comes around the table to stand beside her. "You're welcome." She shakes her head, clearing cobwebs, and asks, "What section do you think a vampire cure for a werewolf bite would be in? I've already tried 'vampire' and 'werewolf.'"

The brunette thinks for a moment. "What about 'potions' or something? Aren't witches famous for potions?"

"Maybe," Bonnie says slowly, and begins turning pages again.

~V~

She has the remains of a jogger's throat on her face and an insatiable appetite reddening her eyes as she approaches the ringleader of the three vampires surrounding her. To her right, Caroline's eyes widen, but the baby vampire advances as Damon and Stefan do. Rose snarls at them, half-crouched as she slinks into their triangle. Damon's fangs are aching for release and he looks to Stefan for concurrence.

In that fraction of a moment, Rose lunges at Caroline but is intercepted by Damon whose arm she rips open with her teeth. Stefan grabs her by the shoulders from behind and throws her in the opposite direction, gaining them a split-second to regroup.

She spins and runs at them, Damon surging forward to meet her, hindered by his shredded arm. Caroline is shoved backwards by Stefan as Rose rips through Damon with arms and nails and teeth, hurdling over her caretaker towards his brother. Damon hits the ground when Rose's teeth touch Stefan's neck and Caroline fists Rose's hair in her hand and yanks hard. Rose roars and twists in Caroline's grasp, breaking her arm and swinging at ribs before going for her neck with both hands.

Caroline shouts but the sound is choked by Rose's grip and Stefan barely recovers in time to hurl his weight at her. He is tossed off before they hit the ground and lands with a hard thud. Rose kicks Caroline unconscious as she comes at her and leaps at Stefan, disregarding Damon's lifeless form. Her teeth cut into Stefan's neck and he screams, writhing, punching, and kicking beneath her.

Damon tackles her, fangs bared, face veined. They roll to a landing with Damon on top, his bodyweight and willpower keeping him there as she bucks and snaps at him. She drags her fangs down his cheek once and he uses his hold on her wrists to bring her torso up and bang her head against the ground.

Her head lolls and Damon collapses on top of her.


	6. Costs

Aaaaaaaaaand again. :) I'm kinda behind over here, more chapters are up on my livejournal (which is completely public, so go to my profile and click on that link...plug plug plug).

I added two entire scenes to this chapter, cuz this is a Damon/Rose fic and there wasn't enough Damon/Rose. Geez, what was I thinking? :P

I disclaim all ownership of everything I don't own!

Oh, and a small warning, up till this chapter, I'd have rated this fic TV-14 (the rating of TVD in the US), but this chapter goes slightly over that line, although in the most innocent way possible.

* * *

The front door of the boardinghouse bangs open and Elena's and Bonnie's heads snap up in unison.

"_Stefan!_" Elena screams. She runs to her boyfriend, terrified of the blood drenching his clothes. He flinches and holds up his hands as she comes up the stairs, stopping her from touching him. "Blood?" she asks.

"Not yours," he says when his nod sends her frantically searching for the nearest sharp object. "Now would be a really bad time for that." Elena nods gravely in understanding and hesitantly moves toward him again. He allows her to hook her shoulder in his armpit and ease him down the stairs.

Caroline limps in and is greeted by Bonnie who came behind Elena with a spell on her lips. Shaking her head empathically, Caroline insists, "Save it for him."

They all turn to the door again as Damon walks through, torn and bloodied with wounds still oozing and Rose drenched in his blood and hers hanging across his arms like a zombie bride. He makes it five steps inside before hitting his knees, holding onto the woman in his arms as he falls.

His face is down, hidden by blood-matted hair and he makes no plea to Bonnie or anyone. Elena is frozen, horrified, Stefan is losing consciousness at rate with blood, and Caroline sways. Rose's legs slip slowly from his grasp as Bonnie hesitates, but at the sight of his mangled chest she hesitates no more.

~V~

The spell knocked all three vampires unconscious to heal them; Damon remained where he was with Rose (who Bonnie and Elena promptly injected with vervain) slanted across his waist because he weighs too much for the girls to move, but Caroline was hefted onto the couch opposite the one Stefan fell on.

Elena washes the blood from her boyfriend's neck with a damp towel and finally voices the question she hasn't known how to ask, "Why won't the spell you just used work on Rose? It was a healing spell, right, so shouldn't it just heal her too?"

"It doesn't work like that," Bonnie replies from the other couch with Caroline's head in her lap. "A werewolf's bite is poisonous. I just stopped their bleeding and prompted their cells to regenerate. They'll wake up soon and need blood. A spell to heal Rose would require me to eliminate the poison from her body when it's already so pervasive. And it's a supernatural poison."

Elena waits for a moment, hesitant to ask her next question. "Did we look through the entire potion section?"

Bonnie shakes her head. "There's a tonic section in the back, but Emily's written a warning never to use them. They're not exactly dark magic, but they're dangerous." She pauses, looking over the arm of the couch at the dying vampire in the doorway. "I'm scared of them, Elena. I'm not sure I even want to know what they are. And I'm scared of what Rose could do to this town if we don't just kill her now. Look what she did to Damon and Stefan and Caroline. We need the ally, but not at the cost of our army."

Dropping her head, Elena caresses Stefan's face before looking up again. "Can't we just look, Bonnie? Please?"

Bonnie looks into the eyes of her best friend, brown and pleading and scared, and acquiesces, shifting Caroline to reach for the grimoire.

~V~

Damon wakes first, the strongest of the vampire quartet (wearily, Elena thinks vampirism is slowly going to consume _all _her life—it's just barely missing the mark now—in one way or another: her boyfriend, her best friend, her other best friend, her brother all have fallen to it and it's only a matter of time before the rest is eaten up or burned down), and surges towards the first human blood he smells.

"_Damon!" _Elena shrieks, the vampire's bloodlust eyes on full display inches from her face, his body no bigger than it was a moment ago but so close, so ferally occupying her personal space, he feels huge, and she would be an idiot not to be threatened. His hands are breaking the back of the couch on either side of her as he briefly appraises this treat without recognition. Bonnie leaps to her feet, tossing off Caroline, and hurls her power through the air at him. The aneurysms take effect in a moment, a moment that's almost too long, and he stumbles away with a snarl and hands to his head.

Finally, he knows both teens and grinds his words between his clenched teeth, "Dammit, witch, turn it off." Relieved, she complies and watches, slightly horrified, as he fights his vampire telltales back.

He stands straight with a hunched spirit Elena can see clearer than a ghost hanging on his shoulders. "I need blood." Bonnie winces. He spies Rose, discarded on the floor. "And she needs a bath."

~V~

He'd left the girls to deal with his brother and Barbie (who'd proven herself tonight, to his surprise) after he'd indigested four or five blood bags, and carried Rose gently upstairs, to the only bathroom with a tub. Now, closing the door behind him, he bends to prop Rose carefully against the corner where the tub meets the wall. He braces himself next to her, legs wide apart with his thighs against her to keep her from falling over, and reaches past her to start the water running. He adjusts the temperature and plugs the drain before turning his attention back to the woman lying in false death below his eyes. With an inaudible sigh, he sinks back onto his heels. Beneath the blood and gore, Rose's coloring is wrong, taking on the gray quality of a vampire corpse. Her clothes are ruined, torn and stained and probably infected with werewolf venom, although Damon's not sure it works that way. Her usually soft and—he never thought this—gleaming hair is matted and stringy. Really, she's a wreck and he wouldn't hesitate to tell her so if she were awake.

His too-long lustful hands are placed chastely and separately between her shoulder blades and under her ass as he shifts her position in order to secure her so he can take off her shoes. After her shoes are off, he slides her socks down her feet and discards them, following with her jeans. Still chaste, his hands graze her hips but leave her panties alone.

Her shirt is the tricky part; he knows, he's undressed his fair share of incapable women. He bends her knees to keep her long legs from getting tangled around the base of the toilet across from her and then slides in behind her, holding her weight on his forearms as he does. Settling her back against him, snarling without knowing it at the wolf bite on her shoulder, he proceeds to pull her shirt up, holding one arm in the air at a time to slide it down over the slender hand at the end. The blood in her hair is smearing onto his chin and scraps of her skin are flaking onto the bathroom floor. Her lack of a bra is unsurprising (her back's too torn up to stand one), and at other times would be gratifying.

A small hesitation breaks his pace. Reaching across Rose again, he pulls the tab to send the flowing water to the showerhead and unplugs the drain. He kicks off his shoes and carefully slips off his shirt. Rose whimpers as he picks her up and steps inside the tub. When Damon realizes the water pressure is too hard to be soothing, he props one foot on the side of the tub and drapes her legs across his thigh so he can twist the showerhead's dial to soften the flow. The floor is drenched and will be ruined, but he never did care about things like that.

He grabs the shampoo and cradles her head in the crook of his elbow. With a tenderness he refuses to recognize, he sops her head and massages her scalp, kneading the blood gently away. He runs his hand down the lines of her body, helping the water do its job and feeling for broken bones she might have sustained that need setting, not trusting the semi-witch to have performed a proper spell (ignoring the fact that he had earlier). She shifts and he puts his foot on the bottom of the tub, taking her weight again on his arms.

Her face turns into his chest before her eyes gape open and fall closed repeatedly, like a blinking alarm clock. Then they stay open almost accidentally, half-mast. She lifts her hand towards his face. "I think this is mine, and this is yours," she says, touching different blood spatters on his cheekbones. He turns the water off and she shivers. "I'm sorry, Damon" and she's gone again.

He presses his lips to her forehead as the water drains away.

~V~

"You did _what_?" Damon demands, blood glass frozen en route to his mouth. Elena pushes slightly into Stefan and Caroline shuffles backwards as Bonnie squares her shoulders and repeats herself, "We injected Rose with vervain."

"You're _killing her faster_," he informs her, making his displeasure known by his sudden appearance in her personal space. Elena flinches for her friend. Damon is _livid_, angered almost (Elena hopes) past the reach of reason.

"I _know_," Bonnie growls right back at him, standing taller to say it into his face.

"Damon," Stefan warns and Elena jumps in to aide him. "We're looking for a cure for her, Damon, really, but she can't hurt anybody else in the meantime." She waits for his attention to turn to her. "Especially not you guys." Damon paces away from Bonnie with a predator's grace, reminding Elena of Simba from _The Lion King_.

Stefan moves from Elena to his brother. "We're not giving up on her, Damon." Damon braces himself against the back of a chair and nods over his shoulder at Stefan.

Caroline goes to the kitchen for more blood and Bonnie walks over to Elena, taking the other girl by the arm and pulling her out of the room. "I found something that may cure Rose."

"That's great Bonnie! Why..?" Elena indicates the semi-privacy Bonnie insisted on.

Bonnie cringes hesitantly. "It requires the witch who makes the tonic to let some blood to be used as an ingredient." At Elena's quizzical look, she continues, "A witch willingly bloodletting has consequences, Elena. It could affect my magic. I may not be strong enough to do anything when Klaus comes if I do this now."

Before Elena can speak, Damon is standing between them. "It doesn't have to be willingly," he growls menacingly down at the witch.

"Yes, it does," Bonnie asserts, giving him three quick, successive aneurysms that have him clutching his head and stumbling before relieving him. "It's part of the tonic's power. A vital part." He glares at her, strides purposefully out of the room to scoop Rose up off the couch he'd laid her on when he'd carried her back from upstairs, turns again, and mounts the stairs. Bonnie, Elena, Caroline, and Stefan watch after him as he goes.

~V~

At midnight, the witching hour, Damon wakes Bonnie up with his sudden appearance in the guest bedroom Stefan showed her to. She's on her sixth aneurysm when he chokes out "Witch," from the floor beside the bed, "just talk."

Suspiciously, she raises her chin, but desists. The look he gives her holds back a dozen smartass remarks, his restraint surprising Bonnie. His shoulders fall and he sits back against the bed, still on the floor. His head hangs slightly and Bonnie wonders how well her healing spell earlier really worked. Before she can speak, he starts making promises.

He promises to protect her in the coming battle with Klaus above everybody except Elena and Stefan. He promises to never kill another human being, for as long as his eternity lasts. He promises to find a witch, witch_es_, to mentor her, to be her family. He promises to protect her line as he has for the past century and a half. He promises to look after Caroline (if she survives), he promises to protect Matt and Tyler and Sheriff Forbes and her absentee dad and her more absentee mom and this bad luck town.

He comes just short of pledging his eternal loyalty to her—_and she knows it_—

So she agrees.

His fangs are gentle as they glide into the veins of her wrist.


	7. What Goes Around Comes Around

We are nearing the end! Only two more chapters and an epilogue after this! Are YOU excited? I'm excited. :D

Buuuuuuuuut this totally feels like gettin'-where-we-need-to-go filler again. I hate that. :/ But I don't know what to do about it, except post it and get it over with so we can get on to the good stuff.The next morning, Bonnie gazes around at the group in the living room, Alaric has been added to last night's registry, though Jeremy still has not at Elena's insistence, and Rose tosses gently on the couch, Damon anchored casually to the fireplace end where her head rests. "We have the wolfsbane—"

* * *

"And the blood!" Damon interjects, swishing the burgundy liquid in the vial he holds. Stefan and Elena exchange a look, but remain silent. Caroline, however, does not possess the same tact.

"You _bloodlet her? _Bonnie actually let you _bloodlet _her?" The blonde's eyes are incredulously widened. Smirking, and fully appreciating the opportunity now presented to him, Damon replies, "Little witch tastes _good_." He runs his tongue along his teeth as Caroline wrinkles her nose and exclaims, "Ewww." She pauses while she realizes what Damon being in Bonnie's room means. "And you left Rose alone in your room again to do it!"

Damon rolls his eyes. "I never—" he glances at Elena, "well, almost never make the same mistake twice, Blondie. I vervained her again before I left," he says it casually; casually enough that Elena knows the action pained him. "And I listened _real_ close."

Caroline huffs at his mocking tone and Alaric thinks this particular conversation has probably gone far enough. "Focus, guys," he implores, rolling his eyes.

Bonnie nods and repeats Damon's earlier comment with gusto, "And we've got the blood." Damon smirks once more at Caroline before turning back to the gang at large and continuing the list, "Now we just need some half-breed mutt fur."

"Redundant," Caroline mutters and Damon growls almost playfully at her.

"Fur?" Elena asks. "Why werewolf fur?"

"They excrete a semi-antidote for their own toxin through their skin," Bonnie explains, citing the page from the grimoire dedicated to the tonic. "It gets absorbed by their fur, or their hair when they're in human form, though it's less potent then and requires more hair than it would actual fur. And it's creature-specific, meaning that Tyler's hair won't work for a bite from Jules."

"Well, we don't have time to wait for the next full moon and I don't think any of us really wanna take on Cujo, so that means we need the bitch's hair." Damon sends a look around the room, rocking forward on the balls of his feet. Nobody disputes him.

"Sooo we steal her hairbrush," Alaric suggests. The vampires each raise an eyebrow at him. "So _I _steal her hairbrush," he corrects. "Would that be enough hair?"

"If she hasn't cleaned it out in awhile, yeah." Bonnie nods.

"Do we know where she's staying?"

"I do," Jeremy declares from the doorway. Everybody turns to look at him, Damon's chuckle grating Elena's nerves as she tries to figure out some way to make Jer go home. The teenager holds up a hand as he comes down the stairs. "Jenna's at Alaric's house," he tells Elena, cutting off her protest that he needs to be protecting their aunt. He looks to Alaric, "Cooking you dinner, by the way, act surprised." He gives his attention back to Elena, "The only vampires that have an invitation inside there are standing in this room and she's back on her vervain regiment. And," he adds, "I called Sheriff Forbes, told her to keep an eye on her, because 'there's been some strange dude standing outside our house lately. And only at night.' So she's on the vampire alert."

"Well done, Jeremy," Stefan compliments him, flinching from Elena's enraged glare when she spins on him.

"Not half bad, kid," Damon concedes, "except, once again, we've now got the council unwittingly on our backs." He downs the last of the amber scotch from his glass with enthusiasm.

Jeremy shrugs. "Gotta work with what you've got. Now what're we doing with Jules' hair?"

"Making a potion, saving a vampire," Damon answers before Bonnie can.

"What?" Jeremy bites, suddenly closing in on Bonnie even as he remains where he is.

The girl in question settles her shoulders. "I'm making a tonic for Rose."

"Does that require any spell casting?" Alaric eyes the two teens, Stefan and Elena exchange another look, and Caroline silently gloats, knowing she's the only one who understands or, rather, has an inkling 'cause she only _kind of _gets it.

Reluctantly, Bonnie answers, "Yes."

"Is that safe?" he persists, to her obvious displeasure. "Jeremy," she hisses, "later."

Now concerned, Elena steps forward. "What is it, Bonnie?" Caroline moves up as well, settling beside Damon and unconsciously copying his cross-armed posture.

"Nothing, Elena," the witch tries to reassure her.

"No, not nothing," Jeremy argues. "Bonnie's been having trouble casting spells. They drain her. It's not safe for her to perform them." Interestedly, Damon steps forward.

"I thought that was only the tomb spell," Stefan says. Elena looks at him and back to Bonnie, oblivious, because nobody had ever given her full explanations of exactly how Stefan had gotten stuck in the tomb and she'd never asked, not, really, wanting to know.

Before the conversation can go any farther in this…_unsavory_ direction, Damon speaks. "Have you been replenishing your magic?"

The entire group cocks their heads at him and he rolls their eyes at their lack faith in his expertise. "I'm a 168" he pauses, "ish-year-old vampire, guys. And I've been keeping her witchy family alive for the past century and a half of it. I'm not deaf _or _blind. How to be a Witch 101: witches need to replenish their magic."

"_How_ do I replenish my magic?" Bonnie inquires intently.

With a wave of his hand, he dismisses her question, "Something to do with your element and getting in tune with it—I saw quite a few naked swims. It should say in that cookbook of yours, but we don't have time to do that right now. You just need some blood."

"_What?_"

"Blood," Damon repeats. "Mine or Stefan's. Or Caroline's," he adds as an afterthought. "It'll give you strength. It won't cure the effects of your bloodletting," he shrugs, "but it will enable you to do the spell." Rose whimpers, and he absently runs a hand down her cheek.

"You can have mine!" Caroline volunteers eagerly. Bonnie can't hide her repulsion and Caroline's heart sinks. "I'm sorry, Care. I just, I can't drink vampire blood."

"You can and you will," Damon contests. "Or all my promises become null and void."

"Promises…?" Jeremy voices, and is ignored.

Bonnie stares into Damon's eyes, searching, and he stares back.

"Okay, Care," Bonnie cedes slowly, "whatcha got?"

Caroline beams and drops her face to slice down a vein in her wrist with a careful stroke of a fang. "Here," she offers.

Bonnie leans in uncomfortably. "Can you guys stop watching?" she requests of the peanut gallery. Damon scoffs but turns his back as the rest of them do and Bonnie's lips close on her friend's seemingly delicate wrist.


	8. Foolproof

Hello again! I really have to work on this pacing thing, because I'm down to hours to get the last chapter _and_ epilogue put up. .

I'm nervous about this chapter guys, so feedback is crucial.

I disclaim ownership to everything but my imagination (and my laptop).

* * *

"Damon?" Rose inquires of the shadow pausing to lounge in the doorway as it enters her room.

Damon pushes off the doorjamb and steps into the lamplight. "You're lucid now? That's conveniently infrequent."

Rose chuckles painfully, her breath catching on the sound. She doesn't even try to sit up, the knowledge of her inevitable demise heavy on her shoulders. The recognition of death is as natural to her as it is to Damon, and neither is tempted to ignore the fact that it weighs the air around them as well as all their bones.

"The witch is working on a potion to cure you." His next words are awkward on his tongue and they stumble past his teeth. "You'll be well by morning."

The she-vamp lifts an eyebrow, feeling her age to his youth. Then, suddenly shy—she swears her years mean something just a moment ago—she looks away from his face and spreads a hand on top of the comforter beside her. "Would you…?"

Knowing unending loneliness and recognizing the deepest need to be touched (how many women has he seen it in?), Damon comes around the other side of the bed and slides in, allowing her to slip under his arm against his chest.

She falls asleep and Damon listens to the sounds of the others preparing for the spell, feeling the sun start to sink beyond the curtains.

~V~

"Why are you trying so hard to save me?" she asks when she is woken up by his departure from the bed. "I know the Bennett witch didn't just hand over the cure."

Eyes more intense than Trevor's ever were, even as they faced her in terror, Damon replies from the doorway with his shoulders stiff. "You're my friend."

She sits in the silence of his words for the length of a vampire's heartbeat.

"If" (not when, she wants to give him hope, _she_ wants hope, even though she doesn't have faith, even though she _thinks_ when) "it doesn't work, will you let me die in the sun?"

He becomes completely still, catching the air in the room and stilling it with him. "I'll open the curtains at dawn."

~V~

Bonnie begins the spell exactly at nightfall, chanting witch-words with her hands flexed over the liquid in the bowl on the tabletop she's standing behind in the living room. Jeremy's hands are steady on her waist, as Stefan's are on Elena's shoulders. Caroline has run out on wolf-duty (still thinking that Damon doesn't know what _exactly_ that means) and so Damon is uncoupled in the shadows of the far corner of the room, listening to Rose's renewed whimpers drop like pins on the floor above them.

Bonnie's cheeks begin to flush and Jeremy's fingertips grow white as his strength becomes all she has. A second before the nosebleed Damon can smell coming, Bonnie's voice ceases as Jeremy catches her weight and helps her to sit. Damon comes forward, shocking the pair at the quickness of his motion. His thanks is left on the space the bowl had occupied a moment before.

Elena's hand closes over Stefan's as Damon cautiously steps into his room.


	9. She's Only Happy in the Sun

And now we come to the conclusion. Just the epilogue left after this.

But first a GINORMOUS thanks to all of you wonderful, wonderful people who reviewed: Roza-Belikov12, darkfae184, morphine cowboy, Bynamearose, Death'sAngel18, Maryam25, Ramon-Tiva-TenRiv, Jasper VS Damon, and anonymous "c." Without your guys' kind and thoughtful words, this story wouldn't have been half what it is. You did wonders to cheer me up on my down days, and you kept my muse alive and always waiting and willing to make improvements. Thanks guys. :)

And that other thing I have to do: I own nothing.

* * *

Her sounds are louder now, more violent, invoking a fear like the depths of the sea. She tosses and turns in his bed, writhing in circumstances so different than he'd have planned. The weight of his step on the wood of his floor shifts the balance in the room and her movements settle into coiled readiness, but she does not open her eyes.

Damon moves with pre-thought purpose, his body settled into itself.

But his deliberateness is lost to haste when Rose sits up. Her open, feral, blood-gorged eyes prompt him to action and he leaps towards the bed, landing atop her and shifting to pin her with his hips. He straddles her ribs as she bucks and claws at him, holding the bowl over his head and riding her like the bronc from a rodeo he entered for laughs in late '73. Her similarity to the mindless beast makes him urgent.

Before Stefan has climbed the last stair, Damon is holding her still rearing body down with his own, her wrists clamped in his hand above her head as he pours the liquid he hopes will save her life down her throat when he can, on her face, chest, and the bed when he can't.

~V~

The night proves long.

~V~

Damon is dancing out of the grasp of Rose's fingers and teeth, watching the skin drip from her back unceasingly as she lunges and snarls. She has marked him already, nails ripping away at the skin of his face, teeth tearing the flesh of his chest leaving his shirt in tatters and he never has the time to just rip the remains off. But she is getting slower at the same rate she becomes more animal and at the same rate that Damon realizes all his promises were fruitless as they always are.

"Damon…" Stefan pleads from the other side of the barricaded door.

"Stay. Out." Damon growls at him, leaping at Rose as she runs again for the window behind the drapes, seeking freedom he will not let her have. The sky is still dark.

"Damon!"

"_Stay. _Out!"

"Damon, please," Elena begs, but this is his and she cannot change his mind.

He hears Bonnie refuse her plea to blast the door open as Rose rakes her fangs across his neck and he throws her, again, to the bed. She's growling and diving back at him faster than he thought she had the strength to and he barely has his arms up in time. He falls under her onto the hardwood floor, straining his head away from her bite. Her hands scrape his sides, his moan short and harsh.

He comes to his feet with what's left of his vampire speed and slams her into the side of his dresser. With a quick and bloodied hand ("I'm so sorry, Damon," Bonnie whispers outside), he reaches for the edge of the curtain, pulling it back when she recovers and is springing at him again.

The hint of sun downs her and she is not snarling but screaming.

He watches her burn until the only recognizable feature of her face is her pleading eyes. Then, he breaks the leg off an antique chair and rams it into her heart.


	10. Epilogue: Well by Morning

Alas, the very end.

You know, at the start of this fic, I did not have any intention whatsoever of killing Rose. I was going to save her and give her a ring and a potential future with Damon as more than his "special friend." But as I was writing, it struck me that this could not be so. Rose was dying; she was going to die. **_Nothing _**I have ever written has _agonized _me like this has. I paced my house, pulled my hair, and wrestled with this, but it could not be written any other way. I have given this more passion than anything else, and I hope you don't all hate me now.

* * *

They bury Rose in Damon's unused grave, laying her charred body down in the dirt at the bottom of the hole Damon dug.

As the others trudge back to the boardinghouse, young faces aged, Stefan helps his brother pile dirt upon the corpse.

~V~

(Every year, Elena places roses on the grave. Every year, after they've died, Damon removes them.)


End file.
